Comments on: Flickr Stock – The Way Stock Photos Should Have Been

By: Corey G

Corey G — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:45:02 +0000

If there was an iStock rival, what would it need to do to be better than iStock?

By: nikkir

nikkir — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:50:43 +0000

It's a shame. Istock could use some competition as they slowly increased their prices.

By: cranial-bore

cranial-bore — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:02:49 +0000

I agree with SomeIndustryDude. If there are 3 billion images, and 30,000 are good enough to sell Flickr would probably find 30 million are submitted for stock. That would mean either a hell of a lot of vetting, or a very low average quality of stock photo.

By: Josh Catone

Josh Catone — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:48:11 +0000

@Dave: A site where amateur writers can sign up and post their writing and only end up making a few cents off it? Sounds a lot like Blogger or Wordpress (and Adsense). I think those are great services.

I’m not sure what your gripe is — that places exist where amateur artists can display their work? or that services exist for amateurs to try selling that work at prices you personally think are too low? or maybe that the Internet has created an environment where hobbyists can compete with professionals in some creative fields?

None of those are bad things, in my opinion. But perhaps I misunderstood the point you were driving at?

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:11:16 +0000

I wonder if Josh would be so enthusiastic if there was a site giving away journalists work for a few cents.

By: jt

jt — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:14:50 +0000

There are already enough sites and people on the web who abuse the licenses on flickr user photos or the API. Hope this idea stays buried and buried deep.

By: SomeIndustryDude

SomeIndustryDude — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:59:35 +0000

I bet you’ll find it was abandoned because it’s too expensive to FIND those 0.001% of photos that are salable. On sites like iStock & StockXpert, every image is vetted for legal issues. iStock claims to have over 100 image inspectors with a (I’m guessing) 50% acceptance rate. That’s gotta be an expensive proposition.

So even if you could do a high level-filter on all the crap in there, to get it down to say .1%, your rejection rate (and therefor cost) would be much higher than conventional microstock. So you might as well just hand-pick the best artists (who produce most of the great work anyway). Oh wait. That’s what Getty is doing.

And if those images aren’t properly vetted, you end up getting your ass sued off. Ask Virgin Mobile:
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7680

By: StevenHu

StevenHu — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:55:14 +0000

It appears that the idea was abandoned because of its partnership with Getty. Getty will pick and choose which photos to include in their repository. Certainly that will make it easier for us to find good photos – they’ll do all the wading and categorizing for us.

By: kessler

kessler — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:28:06 +0000

yahoo continues to degrade the quality and service of Flickr with each decision they make.

By: brad

brad — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:19:41 +0000

I think this would have made Flickr/Yahoo a serious competitor and that the new partner threw a bunch of money at them to become a partner.. in order to keep them out of the game. I for one would have liked to participate in this.